Igg BULLETIN 76, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



to dispose of the name. Lamarck's A. tessellata included also the previously 

 described A. granulans Retzius, 1783. Gray seems to have had a right to consider 

 the name invalidated by granulans, so that cu.^pklafm is perhaps tenable. There is 

 no doubt, however, that Agassiz had cuspidatus (and not gramilaris) in mind when 

 he placed tessellatus as the typo of Goniaster, for his description of the genus clearly 

 indicates it. By most writers tessellatus will be preferred to cuspidatus on the 

 ground of prioritv. Since tessellatus was a composite species originally, the elimina- 

 tion of granuhris would seem to necessitate the restriction of the name to the only 

 available group — that later named cuspidatus by Gray. 



A-MPiiiASTER Verrill." — Type, A. insignis Verrill. — Most of the abactinal plates 

 bear an upright blunt tubercular spine nearly as thick as the diameter of the plates, 

 which are roundish or substellate internally, and connected by about six radiating 

 ossicles or secondary plates. The interspaces between the primary plates, the 

 surface of the secondary ossicles, and the base of the tubercles are covered with 

 rather coarse granules. Several papulas emerge in each of the six areas surrounding 

 a primary plate (these papular areas are covered with granules as noted above). 

 The first superomarginal is largest, smooth, and convex, the second has a heavy 

 tubercle, the tliird is like the first, the fourth like the second, anti the next three 

 very strongly convex. The inferomarginals are similarly disposed. The edges of the 

 plates, which are subcircular, as well as the small interpolated intermarginals are granu- 

 lated. Nearly all the granulated actinal intermediate plates have prominent tuber- 

 cles smaller than those of dorsum. Each adambulacral has a prominent actinal blunt 

 tubercular spine (smaller than those of actinal intermediate plates), and a furrow 

 series of three or four blunt, straight spinelets, as long as the actinal but slenderer. 



This genus is more nearly related to Goniaster than to any in the family 

 Oreasteridse. 



GoNiODiscASTER. — Tliis genus was named by H. L. Clark'' for " Goniodiscus" 

 pleyadella (Lamarck). The old name Goniodi-scus iliiller and Troschel being unten- 

 able,"^ was changed by me to Goniodiscides, with G. sehx as type. L^nfortunately 

 G. sehx and (/. studeri are young Culcita,'^ so that Goniodiscides along with Eandasia 

 Gray becomes synonymous with Culcita. But "Goniodiscus" pleyadeUa (including 

 Pentagonaster validus Bell) is not a young Oreaster, as Perrier ' suggested. It seems 

 to be related to Goniaster. There is a close granulation all over the test, but judging 

 from the dried specimen examined, no skin, such as characterizes Anthenoides. 

 Although the papulae are in areas on the disk, the same holds true in adult Goniaster. 

 The pedicellariaj are minute pincers and small bivalves. In adults the third or 

 fourth marginals from apex of ray are swollen slightly. Abactinal plates strongly 

 stellate, but there are no intermediate secondary plates, as in Goniaster, and no 

 marginal tubercles, only a single short tubercle on each of the five primary ( 

 radials. A plate on either side of the interradial line is enlarged. Adambulacral 

 plates frequently have a good-sized pincer-shaped petlicellaria with tapering jaws 

 as high as the actinal spinelets. 



" Trana. Conn. Acad., vol. 1, pt. 2, April, 1868, p. 372. 



6 Bull. Mus. Comp. ZooL, vol. 52, No. 7, March, 1909, p. 110. 



c See FLsher, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1903, pt. 3, 1906, p. 1070. 



<* Clark, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 51, April, 1908, p. 281. 



« Re^^sion dea Stellcrides, p. 232. 



